10 Radical Ideas To Save The DC Extended Universe

The major criticism of the MCU’s superhero movies has been a singular lack of decent antagonists and high stakes shenanigans. The DCEU movies, on the other hand, seem to have a kitchen sink approach to plot and drama - throw everything in and hope that something sticks.

There has to be a middle ground. Why shouldn’t DC try the low key, non-powered crimefighting approach for a change? It’s something that DC comics arguably do better than Marvel comics: but how many live action superhero stories do you know of where the superheroes actually fight crime?

In between foiling the batsh*t schemes of a host of disfigured maniacs, Batman still breaks heads for a living, as do most of the heroes in the Batman family of characters (Nightwing, Batwoman, Robin, Red Hood, Huntress, etc). Green Arrow, the Black Canary, Checkmate, the Question… the list goes on and on.

On the MCU side, there’s Daredevil, but that pretty much seems to be it. That’s Marvel all over, though. Spider-Man seems too busy; Captain America has more important things to do. Even in the comics, the X-Men only ever seem to fight people when the scrap is politically motivated: it’s either pro-mutant terrorists or anti-mutant terrorists, with the occasional departure to put down mutants who’ve gone mad with power (but only because they’ll give mutants a bad name).

You shouldn’t have to be a street level ninja-style hero to fight street level crime. After all, there’s supposed to be a reason why these people put on silly suits and give themselves dumbass names in the first place, and it’s not to take down Captain Cold or Deathstroke, or to foil weird CGI energy mcguffins (aka the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians Of The Galaxy and Suicide Squad).